Some of Big Heavy World’s volunteer crew with archive bins of 5,000 cataloged Vermont-made music recordings. Right to left: James Lockridge, Abbey Berger-Knorr, Ross Mickel, and Nico Zachman. Photo by Aaron Cross (Image Source: BHW)
Big Heavy World, with the generous expert support of staff at Middlebury College, recently channeled digital images of approximately 5,000 Vermont-made musical recordings into this national digital collection. The holdings of Big Heavy World’s Vermont Music Library — a large cross-section of Vermont’s music history — is now visible through images and catalog data worldwide.
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Big Heavy World is a volunteer-staffed music office that promotes and preserves the music of Vermont, inclusive of all genres. James Lockridge, Executive Director, said, “With thanks to Middlebury College and to the collaborative spirit across Vermont that made participation in the DPLA possible, Big Heavy World is grateful to give Vermont’s music this lift into a national spotlight.” Big Heavy World has historically deployed emerging technologies to promote Vermont’s music and actively pursues new opportunities for exposure of the artform. The organization has been collecting Vermont-made music for more than 25 years and is a state-designated Special Library. Big Heavy World volunteer Randy Laba deserves special recognition for the extraordinary number of hours he contributed to cataloguing the Vermont music collection.
Middlebury College was one of the original organizations to cooperatively pilot the VT-GMDA, which was funded with support from the Vermont Department of Libraries via the Federal Library Services and Technology Act. VT-GMDA is one of 34 service hubs that aggregate content to the DPLA from across the nation. Vermont has been participating in the DPLA since 2017. Patrick Wallace, Middlebury Digital Projects & Archives Librarian, said, “As a community builder and content coordinator, Middlebury College values the labor that our partners put into cultural preservation. We embrace our responsibility to connect Vermont’s content to a global community and the DPLA’s objective of amplifying the value of libraries and cultural organizations as Americans’ most trusted sources of shared knowledge.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
